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The Chase (TV story)
The Chase 'is the eighth serial of the second season of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Terry Nation, directed by Richard Martin and featured William Hartnall as the First Doctor, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright and Maureen O'Brien as Vicki Pallister with Peter Purves as Steven Taylor. Overview To be added Synopsis When the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki discover that a group of time-travelling Daleks have orders to exterminate them, a dangerous chase across time and space follows. To escape the Daleks, the TARDIS must travel from the desert planet Aridius to the top of the Empire State Building on Earth, and from a mysterious sailing ship to a haunted house. But there is an even greater danger waiting for the time travellers when they reach to planet Mechanus. Plot The Executioners (1) The Daleks detect the TARDIS' departure from Xeros and make plans to follow it in their own time machine. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor makes repairs to the Time-Space Visualiser he took from the Morok museum. Vicki gets frustrated by not being able to do anything when he finally gets the machine operational and it makes a high-pitch wail. He explains the machine can view every event in history by converting light neutrons to electricity. He demonstrates by presenting Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address for Ian, William Shakespeare addressing Elizabeth I to propose his plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and Hamlet for Barbara and the BBC One broadcast of The Beatles performance of "Ticket to Ride" in 1965 for Vicki. The TARDIS then materialises on a desert like planet. Stepping outside, Vicki runs off to investigate and Ian goes to follow her with a tracing device for the TARDIS. They find a trail of a strange, poor-smelling substance and follow it, walking off just as a large tentacle buried in the sand comes to the surface. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara sunbathe outside the TARDIS. Barbara hears the Visualiser ringing from inside and goes to switch it off, when it comes up with an image of the Daleks. They detect the TARDIS having landed on Aridius and plan to intercept them, with the Doctor and Barbara watching on the Visualiser; the Black Dalek sends a squad into their time machine to pursue them. With Vicki and Ian still exploring, the Doctor and Barbara hurry off the find them in case the Daleks have already arrived. At the end of the trail, Ian and Vicki stop to rest; when they get up to go, Ian digs up a strange ring in the middle of the sand. Vicki compares it to a childhood myth of hers and suspects that pulling on the ring would be an omen for something terrible to come. In spite of this, they pull on it anyway and a trap door opens up behind them and they go to investigate it. The Doctor and Barbara, unable to find the others head back to the TARDIS but get themselves lost in the desert. In the underground tunnel, Ian and Vicki stumble upon the giant tentacled creature, that shuts the hatch behind them. A sandstorm builds up in the desert, forcing the Doctor and Barbara to huddle together behind a sand dune. By morning, the storm has dissipated and they're still alive but have lost their trail back to the TARDIS. As they get up to go, the Doctor forces them down as he spots a Dalek emerging from beneath the sand. The Death of Time (2) Staying hidden so as not to be seen, Barbara spots more Daleks searching for the TARDIS in the desert and ordering the travellers exterminated on sight. They try to sneak away from the Daleks but encounter a number of amphibious humanoids. In the tunnels, Vicki and Ian are cornered by the creature and try to run from it but are blocked further up the tunnel by a second one. The Daleks above scour the surface above find tracks from the travellers but end up killing an Aridian and continue looking for the TARDIS. The Aridians tell the Doctor and Barbara that when the seas of the planet evaporated, all sea-faring creatures were killed except for the carnivorous Mire beasts. Realising that Ian and Vicki have gone into the airlock below the desert, the Aridians declare it too late to save them but try anyway on Barbara's insistence. When high-sun is reached, however, the charges are detonated and Vicki and Ian are trapped by an avalanche inside the caverns. Arriving at another air lock, the Aridians bring the Doctor and Barbara down into the under city, while the Daleks detect the TARDIS, buried in the sand and plan to dig it up and destroy it. While Barbara and the Doctor eat, they await the Aridians' return with Ian and Vicki. When they do return, they tell the Doctor that the Daleks ordered them to give the travellers over to the them or they would destroy the city. Meanwhile, Vicki finds a way back to the surface and spots the Daleks digging up the TARDIS and exterminating the Aridian slaves but they find themselves unable to inflict any damage on the ship. The Doctor wakes Barbara when the Aridian elders respond to the Daleks agreeing to their ultimatum. Elsewhere, Ian, who had been knocked out in the rockfall, awakens to find Vicki missing and goes in search of her, while she is grabbed by an Aridian and brought to the Doctor and Barbara. The travellers are hopeful when they learn the TARDIS has been uncovered, but the Aridians arrive to bring them to the Daleks. Suddenly, a Mire Beast breaks through the outer door and attacks them; one Aridian is killed while the travellers flee. Ian finds the tunnel exit himself and learns about the Daleks, before he hurries off to find the others, who are headed for the exit themselves. The Daleks give the Aridians one hour to recapture them and leave a guard on the TARDIS. Ian creates a trap for the Daleks using Barbara's cardigan and the Doctor's coat and they lure the guard over to it when it rolls onto the trap and plummets into the chasm. Vicki spots more Daleks approaching and the travellers scurry into the TARDIS and take off. Despite their having escaped, the Daleks pledge to pursue them in their time machine and exterminate them. Flight Into Eternity (3) While the travellers revel in their escape, the TARDIS's time path detector registers another time machine travelling on the same route as the TARDIS. In their time machine, the Daleks lock their trail on the TARDIS. In the control room, the Doctor calculates that they've got a twelve minute head start on the Daleks to give the console time to gather power, which he stresses that they maintain when the ship lands on the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, 1966. A citizen from Alabama, Morton Dill, assumes the TARDIS to be a prop on a film set and the travellers to be actors; as he goes to get his camera, they hurry back inside and leave, just as the Daleks arrive in their time machine. Dill assumes them to be props for the movie and grabs his camera to photograph them too, but they also disappear before he can shoot them. While the Doctor prepares a method of losing the Daleks, the TARDIS again lands on the Mary Celeste in 1872. A crewman on the ship comes out and arrests Barbara as a stowaway; Vicki comes up above him and knocks him unconscious; she then unwillingly whacks Ian on the head and get him into the TARDIS and they take off again. When the crewman wakes up, he watches the TARDIS leave and tells the captain that there are stowaways aboard. The Daleks soon land on the ship themselves, startling the crew as they all jump overboard; one Dalek tries to pursue them but it falls off the ship and into the sea. The Daleks then get back inside their time machine and continue the pursuit. The Doctor looks at the controls and discerns that their twelve minute lead has dropped to eight since their last landing and will reduce again with the next, giving the Daleks the chance to close the gap on them. Journey into Terror (4) As the Daleks time machine follows the TARDIS through the vortex, it lands again, this time inside an old, dilapidated house. The Doctor and Ian go to investigate the upper storey of the building while Vicki and Barbara stay by the TARDIS. Plucking up the confidence to look around downstairs, the girls are startled by a pair of moving glowing eyes in one wall and the sudden arrival of a man calling himself Count Dracula. Ian and the Doctor find similarly strange occurrences, such as apparitions and a rendition of Frankenstein's monster in a mock laboratory. 'Dracula' disappears into another room, unnerving Barbara, who tries to follow. She turns back to find Vicki having vanished; she is then startled by a screaming woman at the top of the stairs and gets trapped behind a rotating wall. While returning downstairs, the Doctor theorises that they've landed in a world of dreams, created by the collected fears of people across the universe. Ian suspects that this means the Daleks cannot land, but they arrive not long afterward. The Daleks leave their machine to look for the travellers, one remaining behind in case they return. The Doctor and Ian are caught by a Dalek but shut it out and run back to the TARDIS. The Frankenstein's monster attacks the Dalek, giving them a chance to get away. The travellers hurry into the TARDIS but Vicki is cut off by the Daleks and the others leave without her. When the Daleks are distracted, Vicki runs off and hides inside their machine. Inside the TARDIS, Ian and the Doctor argue about what the house really was, when it's revealed it was simply an attraction for the Festival of Ghana, 1996. While the Doctor works on his machine, Barbara wonders where Vicki is and they all realise that they've left her behind. In the Daleks' machine, they monitor the TARDIS' approach to the planet Mechanus. The Supreme Dalek orders a replicant of the Doctor to be made, when Vicki, who had heard everything, comes out of hiding to inspect the machine. She tries to contact the TARDIS using the machine's communication system but can't get through. She then sees the Doctor replicant being made. The Doctor, Ian and Barbara try and think of a way of returning to Vicki when Ian suggests capturing the Daleks machine and travelling back for her that way, unaware that she's on board it already. The Doctor concurs with this plan and decides their next destination will be their stand against the Daleks, who are also ready to land on Mechanus. They return to the generation machine and activate the robot Doctor, whom they order to infiltrate and kill. The Death of Doctor Who (5) The Doctor, Ian and Barbara wander around the Mechanus jungle observing large sentient plant creatures called Fungoids; they close in on them but withdraw when exposed to light. Finding a route inside the light, the travellers plan to face the Daleks on this ground. Elsewhere, the Daleks land on Mechanus and they send the robot Doctor to separate the travellers and kill them. After the Daleks leave, Vicki sneaks out of their time machine to find her friends. Wandering along the path, the robot Doctor spots and follows them. Vicki scurried back and forth to avoid the Daleks when she is attacked by a Fungoid. The others find an empty chamber at the end of the pathway and, while trying to discern what it is and what it's for, Ian puts the weapon on a timer so as not to get blown up when it's activated. Vicki finds the TARDIS but is chased away by Fungoids; she also finds the light path and heads up it. The Doctor and the others ready the machine in the cave, when another Fungoid attacks Vicki. She screams and the Doctor and Ian go to find her, giving the robot Doctor the opportunity to get inside the chamber. While the Daleks patrol, the real Doctor and Ian swiftly find Vicki unconscious. The robot Doctor arrives at the chamber and tells Barbara that Ian's dead; she goes with it to be sure of it's claim. Ian and the Doctor return to the cave with Vicki, who is immediately wary of the Doctor when she awakens, until she realises he isn't the replicant. She tells them of the robot and they realise that Barbara has gone with the robot and they rush off to help. She hears Ian call out when the robot attacks her; Ian arrives and stops the robot and it flees before they return to the others. Both the Doctor and the robot arrive and try to convince the others which of them is genuine. Unaware that the Doctor he's stopping is the real one, Vicki and Barbara alert him and they attack the other one. The Doctor and his duplicate fence with their walking sticks before the real one manages to disable the fake. The Dales eventually find the TARDIS but they lose track of the robot Doctor, when they agree to search again during the day. In the cave, Ian keeps guard while the others sleep, but he soon falls asleep as well. While they sleep, a robot eye descends from the ceiling of the cave and observes the travellers. In the morning, the Doctor wakes Ian to the sight of an entire city overlooking the jungle. Deciding they've got to get there, they are interrupted by the Daleks arrival up the path, trapping them in the cave. While they try to think of a plan, the Doctor goes out to the Daleks, pretending to be his robot double but the Daleks don't believe him and shoot at him. While the Doctor sets up the explosive, a large door slides open from the far side of the room and a robotic, spherical creature calling itself a Mechanoid tells them to follow it. With little choice available to them, they comply. The Planet of Decision (6) Stepping into a lift shaft with the Mechanoid, they rise up towards the city. The travellers try to communicate with the Mechanoid but it doesn't speak. The Daleks enter the cave and find the lift shaft, and order a squad to collect equipment to enter it. The Mechnoid takes the travellers to the city where they are escorted to a room and locked inside. The room has a large wooden staircase set up in it's centre; while the travellers discuss the planet and the lack of organic inhabitants, a human pilot named Steven Taylor rushes down the staircase to meet them. Steven is overjoyed about having company having been alone on the planet for two years with none. He explains that Mechanus was initially a human settlement that sent robots to set up but Earth got caught in an intergalactic war, so the project was abandoned. The Mechanoids open up slats in the walls to observe them and the Doctor deduces that they are being used as specimens. Below, the Daleks break into the lift shaft and head up to the city with plans to kill and destroy everything in sight. Heading up Steven's staircase to the roof, Ian makes a plan to get down that way, despite Steven's insistence to the contrary, that they use a long thread of cable to climb down to the ground. Barbara and Vicki aren't very willing of the plan but the Daleks break into the city, forcing their hand and they all head to the roof. While a firefight breaks out between the Daleks and Mechanoids, the travellers the cable to climb, but Vicki freezes out of fear, so they tie the cable around her and lower her to the ground. When they notice the building on fire, Steven rushes back in to find his mascot, almost letting Vicki fall in the process, but the Doctor, Ian and Barbara manage to support her to the ground before climbing down after them. The Daleks and Mechanoids continue to fight, setting the entire city ablaze. Uncertain of Steven's fate, the four travellers rush back to the TARDIS while the city is engulfed in flames. Making it back to the ship, Ian checks in the Daleks' time machine and confirms the Daleks to be defeated again. The Doctor heads inside to examine it with Vicki, while Ian and Barbara privately confer that the Daleks machine could actually get them back home; they hurry back inside to ask the Doctor if he'd take them. Meanwhile, Steven, who made it out of the city, scrambles through the jungle screaming for the others, while narrowly avoiding the Fungoids. The Doctor angrily and stubbornly refuses to help Ian and Barbara work the Dalek machine in what he considers a suicidal act and furiously rebuffs Ian when he shuns his two year effort to return them to their own time. Barbara tries to plea with the Doctor, but he still refuses to assist them. Vicki privately speaks with the Doctor and convinces him to let Ian and Barbara take the risk if they so wish; in spite of his strong reservations and reluctance to let them go, he concedes and takes them inside to show them how to pilot the craft. Not long afterward, the Doctor and Vicki emerge and watch the machine leave. Ian and Barbara step out of it the other end and discover to their joy that they've successfully made it back to London, 1965. After destroying the Daleks machine as per instruction, the former travellers revel in the thrill of finally being home. They board a bus to discover things have since changed in their absence and try to think of a way of explaining their disappearance, but just burst out laughing. In the TARDIS, the Doctor and Vicki watch their jubilation on the Time-Space Visualiser; Vicki is thrilled that they made it back safe and well but the Doctor is saddened by their departure and muses that they will be missed, before he and Vicki take off into time and space again. Cast * Dr. Who - William Hartnell * Ian Chesterton - William Russell * Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill * Vicki - Maureen O'Brien * Steven Taylor - Peter Purves * Abraham Lincoln - Robert Marsden * Francis Bacon - Roger Hammond * Queen Elizabeth I - Vivienne Bennett * William Shakespeare - Hugh Walters * Television Announcer - Richard Coe * Dalek Voice - David Graham * Dalek Voice - Peter Hawkins * Dalek Operator - Robert Jewell * Dalek Operator - Kevin Manser * Dalek Operator - John Scott Martin * Dalek Operator - Gerald Taylor * Mire Beast - Jack Pitt * Malsan - Ian Thompson * Rynian - Hywel Bennett * Prondyn - Al Raymond * Guide - Arne Gordon * Morton Dill - Peter Purves * Albert C. Richardson - Dennis Chinnery * Captain Benjamin Briggs - David Blake Kelly * Bosun - Patrick Carter * Willoughby - Douglas Ditta * Cabin Steward - Jack Pitt * Frankenstein - John Maxim * Count Dracula - Malcolm Rogers * Grey Lady - Roslyn De Winter * Robot Dr Who - Edmund Warwick * Mechonoid voice - David Graham * Mechonoids - Murphy Grumbar, John Scott Martin, Jack Pitt * Fungoid - Jack Pitt, Ken Tyllsen Crew * Writer - Terry Nation * Director - Richard Martin * Director - Douglas Camfield (Uncredited for Episode 6) * Producer - Verity Lambert * Script Editor - Dennis Spooner * Designer - Raymond Cusick * Designer - John Wood * Costumes - Daphne Dare * Fight Arranger - Peter Diamond * Film Cameraman - Charles Parnell * Film Editor - Norman Matthews * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson * Make-Up - Sonia Markham * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson * Lighting - Howard King * Sound - Ray Angel * Title Music - Ron Grainer References To be added Story notes To be added Broadcast & Ratings Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Chase'' page on '''Doctor Who Website